"You are aware that you are an utter arse, right? I'm not gonna."

"Peter, you have no sense of adventure! James will do it with me, won't you Jamsie?" Sirius looked pleading at the boy on the bed next to his, who nodded vigorously. "See! Do you really want to be the only one who doesn't love Remus enough to be with him and comfort him during the full moon? He'd do it for you, you know. We'd all do it for you. Any real friend would." Sirius Black rolled onto his back on his bed and let his head hang over the side so that Peter Pettigrew would get the full effect of his puppydog eyes.

"Sirius, you look like a prat when you do that." James Potter flipped through the book that he'd gotten from the restricted section the night before. He really ought to have gone through his transfiguration teacher to get The Animagus Within, but then someone might have guessed exactly what the boys were planning, which would not have been good. And when one has an invisibility cloak, one is occasionally tempted to bypass some of the more common channels. Sirius glared at his friend, but righted himself.

"But I want you to, Peter," he whinged piteously, "It was going to be a togetherness-bonding thing! We would be being manly together out in the forbidden forest!" The second-year pouted in a singularly unmanly fashion.

"Huh. That's not the bit that worries me, Sirius," Peter got up and crossed to the other side of the dorm room where his friends' beds were. He jabbed his finger at the book in James' lap. "The book says that bad things can happen when you're trying to become an animagus. *Bad* things, Siri. This guy I was reading about earlier, Hubbard Crouch, turned into a bat and then when he turned back he still got mad cravings for bugs. I'd die if I suddenly needed to eat bugs."

"But we'd be careful! If we read everything we can about it, and then if we never work on it alone, then I'm sure that we'll come out all right. I already know practically everything about transfiguration that there is to know. I'll keep you on track." Sirius fairly bounced with hopeful anticipation.

"You are so stuck on yourself since we got that last test back," Peter sighed, "I will never forgive McGonagall for giving you 127 percent. You're more of a prat than ever." Sirius nodded happily. "Right-O. If you're both going to do it, I'll go along with you. But, so help me, if I end up eating bugs there will be nowhere for you to hide from my wrath."

Sirius looked at Peter's round and earnest face and burst out laughing. James clucked his tongue, "You really can't pull off a threat like that, Petie." Then he grinned, "Maybe if you'd said "You cannot flee my rabid, bug-eating wrath."

Peter pouted, "I can be menacing! Really!" He gave a mock-growl and pounced on Sirius' bed, tickling the other second-year until Remus Lupin came into the room and the three boys had to pretend that they hadn't been doing anything.

***********

That Friday was the full moon. While Remus languished in his isolation at the shrieking shack, his three roommates were in the Gryffindor common room, fleshing out their plans. Actually, "languishing" was Sirius's choice of word.

"Damn, Siri, must you be so melodramatic about everything?" James was very rarely out of sorts, but, now that they had decided to go through with the training, he was getting a bit high-strung.

"I can't bloody well help it!" Sirius, on the other hand, was always out of sorts when Remus was away. "Have you got the books?" James pulled six books from his bag and handed them to his friends.

"We should probably start with the one that is only theory, and then we can go on to this one Animagi of the Ages because the index says it has a lot of practical information for beginners." Sirius wasn't listening to him anymore, however. He was already entranced by the pictures in Lions and Tigers and Bears, Oh My. Peter shook his head and picked up another book.

**********

They would meet for hours several times a week after that. The progress was nonexistent for six months until Peter made a breakthrough and ended up with a rat's tail for three days. Sirius was hexed half a dozen times before he figured out that laughing was not an appropriate response to the situation. After Peter stuffed the new appendage out of sight, however, his friend became very grave.

"What if it hadn't been a tail? What if you had rat's ears? Or three-toed feet? Or something else that someone would have noticed?" Sirius seemed ready to hyper-ventilate.

"Don't be so uptight about it, Siri; I'm sure that students get hexed with animal…whatnot… all the time; teachers will hardly bat an eye." James was a bit flustered by Sirius's sudden change in mood.

"I'm not talking about teachers!" hissed Sirius, "I don't want Remy to find out!"

"Er, don't you think that you've become a trifle obsessive on the subject of 'what will Remus think?' He's not going to find out." James had started to worry about Sirius's monomania about Remus, and shot him a look as he sat grumbling to himself in his chair.

**********

Sirius hadn't been exaggerating when he was trying to convince Peter to train with them. He really was quite good in transfigurations, pulling the top marks for their year. And he had only gotten better in the two years since that decision to become Animagi. But this knowledge made him a trifle over confident. And so it was that he found himself sneaking out of the room late one night, Practical Steps in Becoming an Animagus under his arm and James's invisibility cloak on his back. James was a sharing kind of bloke. He wouldn't mind. Especially, thought Sirius, since he'll never have to know.

He wandered down to a nearly abandoned hallway that he and Remus had grown fond of for talking privately. He rather thought that he was fonder of their talks than Remus was. Not that Remus didn't enjoy them, because he was certain that he did, but spending time alone with Remus had grown to be one of Sirius's favorite pastimes. He thought that time that could have been spent with Remy, and wasn't, was wasted. He was a bit afraid to tell the others about this development, though he thought that James probably suspected something.

That was one of the reasons this was so important. When Remus found out that this was all Sirius's idea, surely he would be Remy's favorite person just like Remy was his. This one thought, of being admired and appreciated by Remus, was enough to get him up in the middle of the night to work on his transformations.

The effort involved in their training was enough that James complained that it was like being on two Quiddich teams and Sirius knew that the effort of keeping a secret like this from Remus for so long was weighing heavily upon all of them. It sat like a rock on his stomach as he tried to sleep until he couldn't take it anymore and had to try again. The sooner that he could transform, the sooner Remus could be given his present.

He had decided to be a dog. Enough like Remus to keep up with him, but different enough to keep from making him feel bad about having so much trouble with a transformation that his friend could do painlessly whenever he wanted to (or not at all as he saw fit). Sirius had visions of jumping and running and playing with Remus under the full moon out in the woods. Visions that appealed to him so much that he had been sneaking out alone to practice for two months. In his mind it was all for the good if he was the first one done. That would mean that he might be able to have Remy to himself for a while. And more time with Remy without his other friends realizing that his feelings for him were not…entirely platonic…was definitely a good thing.

Anyway, it had been simply ages since they had started studying to become animagi and they weren't moving nearly fast enough. It could be summer before they were ready to transform with Remus, and what good would that do anyone? Sirius had heard that not all wizards were able to become animagi and that, of those who could, most took several years to do it. Well, they didn't have that kind of time. He was determined to be the fastest in the history of wizardom. He was pretty sure that he had read that four years was the record. He would beat that or die in the attempt.

Having reached his destination, he took off the cloak and sat down to read the next bit of his book. If he was going to transform, he damn well wanted to be able to see himself, thank-you-very-much. It was so exciting to already be up to full body transformation. He was positively itching to try it out.

Later, much later, he would be able to confide to his friends that he was in such a hurry to try out his new shape that he was perhaps not as attentive to the minutiae as he might have been. His eager eyes must have just skipped over the bit that warned against attempting a transformation before having memorized and practiced the necessary steps for turning back.

When he first realized that he had actually done it, he was thrilled. He bounded up and down the hall, tongue lolling and an immense doggy grin upon his face. He pushed open the door to the W.C. and jumped up onto the sinks to look at himself in the mirror. Large, almost as large as a wolf, and black like a Grim. He was less than pleased by his compulsion to drink from the toilets, but his joy over-rode even that indignity.

It was when he tried to leave the bathroom that his first bit of panic set in. The door's hinges were on the inside, so he'd had little trouble pushing his way into the bathroom, but now that he wanted out…his new body proved completely inadequate to the task of re-opening the door. It was at this point that he tried to turn back, and it was about five minutes after that when he let out an unearthly howl as he realized that, try as he might, it just wasn't happening.

This, he said angrily to himself, is what comes of being impetuous. This, he growled, is what happens to boys who think that they're oh, so smart. This, he sadly mused, is probably what happens to people who fall in love with their best friends. It must be a punishment of some kind. No coincidence could be so cruel.

Sirius pondered his predicament for nearly an hour before finally coming to the conclusion that there was nothing to be done. He was trapped in the bathroom. The book that told him how to change back was on the other side of the door. He would have to wait until the morning, when someone would come to use the facilities. He would be able to get out then. He couldn't possibly change back right there in the hallway. People would be suspicious. He'd have to drag the book off to somewhere private and then do it. He desperately willed himself not to realize that everyone would already be suspicious of a large black dog in the halls of Hogwarts, especially one carrying an open book in its mouth.

He lay under the sinks after trying very hard for a very long time to get used to the way his dog's body felt when he was in different positions. It felt weird. He didn't really like it. And Remy had better appreciate all of the trauma that he was going through. Sirius focused on the thought of having his ears scratched by his friend and was able to drift off to sleep.

********************

He was awakened by a yelp. A first-year Hufflepuff was staring at him in shock and slowly edging back towards the door. He rose and stretched, marveling at the elastic feel of his body, and began walking to the shaking boy. The Hufflepuff screeched and dashed for the door, flinging it open and running off. Luckily Sirius was a good deal faster in this form than he was in his regular body and was able to zip through the door before it closed.

He was jubilant once again. It was clearly early in the morning, perhaps even before breakfast, and he was free. There was nobody about. He would be able to grab the book and drag it into a quiet nook and restore himself in a jiffy. He was completely confident in his ability to change back, go up to the dorm and return everything to just as it ought to be before classes began. He panted happily.

Then he noticed something. The cloak was exactly where he had left it, iridescent and shimmery upon the floor. The book was not. He looked up and down the hall. No book. He went to the edge of the wall and peered around it. Not only was there no book to be seen, but the first-year was returning. With Filch. Not good.

He loped back to the cloak and, picking it up in his mouth, bounded off in the other direction. There were no witnesses at that end of the corridor, so he set off for Gryffindor tower, unsure of what else to do.

He was wholly and utterly bookless. What was he going to do now? Perhaps when he got there James would give him another book and he could find out that way. The techniques were nearly uniform anyway. It was not until he got to the tower that he had several epiphanies, one after the other. First, he could no longer say his own password. Second, James would have no way of knowing it was him or what had happened. Third, he was likely to scare any of his housemates off before he could convince them to open the door for him and then he'd be reported to Filch again. Whereupon he might be evicted from the castle. And whatever would become of him then?

Sirius tried to think clearly, but small movements of mice and insects and interesting smells kept pulling at his mind. He hadn't really believed that story Peter had told him about the bugs, but now he was forced to acknowledge that he was not a boy in a dog suit, but a dog. This thought disquieted him even more and he began to whimper. The noise unfortunately must have attracted someone, because he heard footsteps. The castle had been largely deserted because of the early hour, but that did not ensure that no one would see him, and even this advantage would be taken away shortly with the advent of breakfast.

Unable to think of anything better to do, he scurried off into a small off-shoot hallway nearby. The footstep grew louder and he began to shake.

"I guess it was nothing, Peter. Or, if it was anything at all, it was Peeves." Sirius recognized the gentle and soothing voice of Remus Lupin and had to bite back a howl. If he let the secret out with his stupidity he would never forgive himself.

"I heard it! And I don't think it was Peeves. It sounded like a dog-" Peter's voice cut off and Sirius heard a small gasp. Could Peter have guessed? No, there was no way he could have put the truth together from that tiny bit of information. True, Peter did know that Sirius was trying to become a dog. In fact, the dog-star/Sirius jokes had almost become more prevalent than the serious/Sirius jokes. Not that either of them were funny. Peter's voice was heard again.

"I wonder if James has found Siri, yet."

"I hope so," said Remus quietly, "I'm a little worried. He usually leaves a note or something if he leaves before we get up." Sirius started. His Remy seemed rather upset that he wasn't there! He let out a little yip of happiness. Mistake.

"There it is again!" Peter sprinted over to the source of the noise and gasped when he saw the black dog with James' cloak at its feet. He snatched it up and stuffed it in his pocket before Remus could see.

"Oi! What have we here?" gasped Remus, "He's gorgeous!" Peter hemmed and hawed for a moment before saying, in what he hoped was a nonchalant voice, "Oh. I think I've seen him around a bit on the grounds. I think he belongs to one of the teachers." Sirius preened for Remus and let him scratch behind his ears. He was confident that everything would be okay now. Peter obviously knew, from the cloak, and Remus thought he was "gorgeous." He would have preferred "dashingly handsome," but he realized that it would be kind of squicky for Remus to think that about him as a dog.

"Let's see if we can get him to come up to the dorm with us," said Remus, as he continued to massage Sirius's ears in a way that was making him pleasantly drowsy.

"Good plan," responded Peter, though he seemed a little doubtful. He gave password to the portrait of the fat lady (today it was defenestration) and led the way through the opening as Remus patted his thigh to try to convey to the dog that it ought to follow.

Sirius, who would have followed Remus over a bed of hot coals, jumped nimbly through to the Gryffindor common room. He scampered up the steps with them and into the fifth-year boys' room, where James was sitting on his bed looking pensive.

"Remus," suggested Peter, "I think that the second-year with the overbite has some jerky in his trunk. Why don't you go see if he'll give you some and you could give the dog a treat?" Remus disappeared with a vigorous nod and Sirius was alone with the two other boys.

"We've got trouble!" hissed Peter as soon as the door was closed, "Remy and I found this dog outside the entrance to the common room and it had this." He held out the invisibility cloak for James to see. The other boy went stark white.

"Buggering, sodding hell," he whispered, "Siri?" Sirius barked and wagged his tail. The end to all of his troubles was in sight. Friends who knew were friends who could help. And Peter had even had the foresight to send Remus out of the room. When he came back they could simply tell him that the dog had run off.

James buried his face in his hands and sighed. "Okay, we don't have much time until Remy gets back. Sirius, I don't know how you did it, but you picked a hell of a time to finally transform. Madame Pince discovered the missing books early this morning and summoned them back to the restricted section. I told you that we had them out too long this time, but no, you're in such a hurry… I don't think that she knows it was us, but it'll be much harder to get them back again because they're sure to be under lock and hex now. And she'll probably realize when it gets to her that Sirius Black has been missing classes and there's a big black dog following us about."

Sirius stared at his friend. What did he mean? The books were gone? How was he supposed to turn back without those books? He'd be stuck as a dog forever! Or at least until they had a pass to get one of the books out, which was very nearly the same thing. He howled balefully.

The other boys just looked at him in silence until Peter said, "I can't believe he actually did it. I'm nowhere near that good yet."

James nodded and said, "Me neither. He's got to have been doing some major practicing on the sly." He gave a small jump and asked, "What do we tell the professors? How do we explain Siri's absence to Remus?" Sirius whimpered and lay down on the cold, hard floor. This had to be the worst thing that had ever happened to him. Worse than when he fell out of that tree and broken both legs when he was eight. That had only taken a few hours to put aright; this promised to be much, much longer than that.

Just then Remus came back with a handful of jerky and the younger boy with the overbite in tow. "Jeremy wanted to meet our new friend, here." He plopped down next to Sirius and began waving the meat in front of his nose. Sirius felt something inside him stir at the smell and snapped at the jerky.

"Whoa, there, boy," chuckled Remus, "One at a time!" He took turns with the younger boy feeding their new friend and neither of the boys seemed to notice the somberness of their companions. But, when the meat was gone and the second-year had left, Remus moved to his bed and threw himself down.

"Where can Siri be?" he wailed. James and Peter exchanged a glance.

"Uh…" began Peter.

"That is to say…" supplied James nervously.

"We found a note!" Peter seemed to have an idea.

"Yeah!" agreed James, "He said to forgive him, but he was called away to his family. Very sudden, very, very sudden." He looked inordinately pleased with himself.

"Oh?" asked Remus, leaning up on his elbows, "Can I see it?"

"Uh…" said Peter again, "No."

"No?" Remus looked troubled, "Why not?"

"Because," James said quickly, "It disintegrated the instant we finished reading it."

"Oh." Remus thought about this for a moment, "Why did he have to see his family?"

"Funeral. Aunt's funeral," said James just as Peter said, "Visiting relatives." They looked at each other for a moment before James said, "The relatives are visiting for the funeral." Peter sighed with relief. From his spot on the floor Sirius hmphed at the utter inadequacy of his friends' story fabricating skills. Pitiful, it was. He could have done a hundred times better in his sleep.

Remus looked resigned and said softly, "I wish he'd left a note for me."

"Yours was the first name on the heading," said Peter, "Dear Remy, Peter and James."

"Really?" he asked hopefully.

"Yeah," agreed James.

"Good," sighed Remus and he burrowed down under the covers of his bed, even though he was dressed and breakfast was in fifteen minutes. "Sometimes I think he doesn't even know I exist," he whispered. His dorm mates looked worriedly over at the dog that was watching very interestedly from near the foot of the bed. They hoped he wouldn't say anything further incriminating, but they hoped in vain. "He probably doesn't even like boys and if I told him I liked him he'd stop being friends with me. He'd probably tell me I was a pervert. I couldn't take that." Remus pulled his pillow over his head and so didn't see the odd, doggy sort of jig that the black animal did. He felt it, though, when the hound leapt onto his bed and lay down upon his legs.

His laughter was muffled through the pillow and his voice was quieted, too, so that his friends didn't hear him when he said, "I'm going to name this dog 'Black.'" Sirius heard, though.

And the week that it took James and Peter to get their hands on that book again was one of the nicest that Sirius had ever had. He spent the entire time following his love around the grounds and listening to him pour his heart out to his new companion about the absent Sirius Black, away at a funeral and/or entertaining visiting relatives, who Remus was sure would just adore the dog when he got back. James forged a note from the Blacks explaining his whereabouts and sent it to the Headmaster. Sirius was certain that Dumbledore already knew everything -he always did- and so was shocked and overjoyed that he didn't seem to be inclined to call them on it, though the man did seem to twinkle at then even more than was usual. Sirius knew he would have a devil of a time making up his work when he got back to normal, but the anticipation of a certain very long talk that he was planning on having with his Remy made all that seem like nothing.

Perhaps the best part of all, though, was how well Remus took the news about his dog's secret identity. Madame Pomfrey had the other three boys stitched back up in next to no time at all.